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Tears fell in heavy sobs, my body shaking with the force of my grief. Each breath felt like it was being ripped from the depths of my soul, echoing in the quiet room. I fumbled with my clothes, changing into my pajamas with trembling hands. I didn’t want to remember the night. I just wanted to go to bed and forget it forever.
The three of them sat beside each other on the couch in the private room, facing the large window that overlooked the stripper’s stage. After the lap dancer Ivan had paid to dance and play with me had left, he instructed me to ride them one at a time. He liked to go last.
Hands still behind my back, I crawled across Ivan’s lap from the friend beside him who had just taken two minutes to shoot his load in my already cum-filled pussy. He placed his glass down and grabbedmy ass cheeks hard.
“That’s it, Tess. Come to Daddy.” I quickly slid onto his dick and closed my eyes, wanting to get it over with as fast as possible. “Look at me, you little slut.”
Swallowing, I looked at him like he’d ordered, which I hated to do. There was nothing but malice in his eyes, and his yellow-toothed smile made it worse.
He groaned and slapped my ass hard. “Ah yeah! Harder, bitch,” he growled.
I rode him as hard as I could, ignoring the burning in my legs and abs after my long day at work, followed by my long night servicing these assholes. I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up. I usually tried not to cry because he’d grown to like it too much, but this time, they fell anyway. Unsurprisingly, he laughed and licked them up with his broad, disgusting tongue, then wrapped both his hands around my neck and squeezed hard as he came loudly, jerking his hips and throwing his head back.
At least I didn’t pass out that time. There was always someone there so excited about getting to fuck a hole in an unconscious slut, and I’d wake up to another cock in my mouth or ass. Or both. Every night Ivan brought me to one of these, I wondered if it would be the night he’d finally kill me, cumming with his hands around my neck. Fucking the life out of me.
I crawled into my bed and under the covers, the sheets cool against my tear-streaked face. The familiar feel of my pillow offered a small comfort, but it couldn’t stem the flood of emotions. The room was dim, lit only by the sliver of moonlight filtering through the curtains. I curled into a ball, clutching the blanket tightly as thetears continued to flow, each one a release of the pent-up fear, relief, and sorrow I had been holding back.
Chapter Four: Charm and Disarm
Tess
In the morning, Ifelt mostly refreshed. I’d learned long ago to put my traumas into the past and move on. Comforted by the familiar piles of grimoires sorted into read, studied, and to-be-studied, I tapped the read pile on my way to the closet. I snagged a pink T-shirt with “Magically Delicious” in a messy handwriting font and pulled it on with some jeans before heading out to the kitchen for coffee with my own grimoire from the bedside table.
As I stirred the milk and sugar into my coffee, I thought about the charm enchantments I needed to address. Tapping my fingers rhythmically to the table, I considered the plan.
First, my calm charm needed recharging. I’d recently recharged the confidence charm, but since the calm charm was waning, it hadthrown my balance off, which was why I’d almost gotten myself killed while fighting with Ivan.
While I was at it, I’d recharge the anti-spy ward, keeping Ivan uninterested in watching the apartment I shared with Addie. I didn’t want her to get mixed up with him, so she wore a necklace I gave her that made her effectively invisible to him. Not literally invisible but completely uninteresting. Ivan wouldn’t even notice her if he passed her on the street. He’d ignore her if she asked him a question. It was the riskiest one I’d dared to do. I had to collect Ivan’s own blood from one of our other rituals and bring it home to use on the crystal in the necklace I gave her and the ward for the apartment. If he ever figured out I’d enchanted something from him, he would go ballistic.
Magic required a sacrifice. Your blood or someone else’s, the magic didn’t care. If you offered up all the blood from a body, the power you gained would be enormous, but that was the blackest of magics. Something I would never touch.
“So what happened?”
Addie’s voice broke me out of my head, making me jump. “Shit.” I threw my hand to my chest. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” She came to sit down at the table across from me. Once settled, she didn’t say anything. Just left quiet space for me to speak. But I had nothing to say. “Are you gonna tell me?”
I shook my head. “Nothing happened.”
She raised an eyebrow with a smirk and rested her chin on her palm with her elbow on the table. “Liar.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway.” I opened the lid of my magic kit, about the size of a large jewelry box, carved with protection runes. I’d gotten it from Seraphina at her grimoire shop. She’d figured out I was in a bad situation all on her own somehow and gifted it to me. It was carved from a single piece of wood, and the runes indicated ancient deitysacrifices, making the contents extremely blessed and safe from harm. I unpacked the dagger, mortar and pestle, the incense and the spelled crystals.
“So whatcha doing now?”
“Recharging my calm charm because I freaked out over nothing last night.” I unclasped the bracelet around my wrist and laid it on the table.
She stood up. “Was it over nothing?” Stepping to the counter, she poured herself a coffee, the clinking of the spoon against her cup making my head throb.
“Yes.” I removed the calm charm from my bracelet and placed it in the mortar in front of me. The rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted under my nose reassuringly.
Addie sat down again, her chair creaking slightly. She took a slow sip of her coffee, the steam curling up around her face. “What happened?” she asked, her voice a mix of concern and curiosity.
I lit the incense, the fragrant smoke spiraling upward as I placed it in the holder. Carefully, I arranged three small crystals in an arc on the other side of the charm, their smooth surfaces catching the morning sunlight from the window, creating a subtle, shimmering halo. They formed a protective boundary, closing in the charm against me. “He took me to Sapphire.” I shrugged, my voice barely above a whisper. She knew that already, but what more could I say? I just wanted to forget it, and she always wanted me to talk about it.
Addie’s forehead creased, as did her chin as she frowned in concern. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not much.” I shushed her, and placed the cold, sharp blade of the ritual dagger against my palm, slicing a quick, shallow line in the fleshiest part. The sting was brief but intense, a hint of the ritual’s demand for blood and pain. I whispered the calm incantation, theancient words flowing from my lips almost tangibly. In seconds, my shoulders dropped, and my heart rate slowed as the spell permeated the room. I could sense the same effect enveloping Addie, her posture relaxing visibly.
